mny believd tht gaddafi's regme in libya wld withstnd d gale of chnge swping the arab’s world

(jst lke gabby’s wthstnd hs crve 4 chocs n sugr) coz of its reputatn 4 brutlity whch hd
fragmented strng poplation ovr d pat 42 yrs

its likely dissapearng nw, aftr a fw wks of prtest by unarmd demnstrtors is all mre surprsng cz
it hs smehw systmatically destryd evn the slightst pretnce of dissidnce n hs atmised libyan
socty 2 ensre tht x orgnsation frmal/spntaneous cld evr consldate suffcntly 2 oppse

Poltical Islam, whether radical or moderate, has been the principle victim, especially after an
Islamist rebellion in Cyrenaica, the country's eastern region, in the latter 1990s. Other political
currents have been exiled since 1973, when "direct popular democracy" was declared and
the jamahiriyah, the "state of the masses", came into existence.
Even the Libyan army was treated with suspicion, with its officer corps controlled and
monitored for potential disloyalty. No wonder that major units now seems to have broken
away from the regime and made the liberation of Eastern Libya possible
Causes for collapse
The only structures that the regime tolerated, outside the formal structure of the "state of the
masses" Colonel Qaddafi's idiosyncratic vision of direct popular democracy in Libya’s
stateless state in which all Libyans were theoretically obliged to participate – came from
Libya’s tribal base and the Revolutionary Committee Movement, itself tied to the regime by
tribal affiliation and ideological commitment and used to discipline and terrify the population
through "revolutionary justice".
Apart from that, there was only the colonel's family and the rijal al-khima, the "men of the tent"
– the colonel's old revolutionary comrades from the Union of Free Officers which had
organised the 1969 revolution against the Sanussi monarchy which had brought the colonel
to power. And even the tribes did not necessarily support the regime, although they were
constrained by the "social popular leadership", a committee bringing together thirty-two of the
major tribal leaders under the watchful eye of the regime.
Yet, in reality, the Sa’adi tribes of Cyrenaica, for example, had little love for the regime, for
they had been the cradle of the Sanussi movement which had controlled much of modern
Libya and Chad in the nineteen century. In partnership with the Ottoman Empire, the Sa'adi
led resistance to Italian occupation between 1911 and 1927.
They had been disadvantaged by the revolution, not least because the revolutionaries came
from three tribes – the Qadhadhfa, the Maghraha and the Warfalla – which had originally
been subservient to them.
It could be argued, in short, that the revolution was, at its heart, a reversal of tribal politics,
despite its ostensible commitment to Arab nationalism.

Geographic issues
Indeed, the regime has been consciously constructed on the back of these three tribes which
populated the security services and the Revolutionary Committee Movement.
Yet even they had their own grievances; the Warfalla had been implicated in the unsuccessful
1993 Bani Ulid coup and its leaders had refused to execute those guilty as a demonstration of
their loyalty to the regime.
Colonel Qaddafi's henchmen organised the executions instead, earning tribal enmity and
probably explaining why tribal leaders so quickly sided with the opposition when the regime
began to collapse.
Then there is also a geographic imperative for the rapidity of the collapse of the regime. Libya
is essentially a desert, with the only areas that can support intensive residence located in the
Jefara Plain, around Tripoli in Tripolitania, and the Jabal al-Akhdar behind Benghazi in
Cyrenaica.
The result has been that Libya’s six million-strong population, as a result of oil-fired economic
development in the rentier state that emerged at the end of the 1960s, is now highly
urbanised and largely concentrated in these two cities and the satellite towns around them.
Corruption
This means that any regime which loses control of them has lost control of the country, even
if it controls all outlying areas, such as the oil fields in the Gulf of Sirt between them, which is
also the home base of the Qadhadhfa, or the Fezzan that still seems to be loyal to the
Qaddafi regime.
It is this that explains how, once the army in Benghazi changed sides, the regime lost control
of Eastern Libya and why its hold on Tripoli, the capital, has been so rapidly contested.
Nor should the nature of the regime or the Qaddafi family be ignored as a factor for the
collapse. The regime has, in recent years, benefited from growing foreign investment in Libya,
alongside its massive oil revenues, after sanctions in connection with the Lockerbie affairs
were removed in 1999.
As foreign economic interest grew, so did corruption and, although Colonel Qaddafi himself
may not have been corrupt, his seven sons and one daughter certainly were, drawing their
fortunes from commissions and income streams siphoned off from the oil-and-gas sector.
Libyans themselves have been excluded from the benefits of oil wealth for decades, so the
blatant corruption inflamed their resentment in recent years.
'Foreign mercenaries'
In addition, the Libyan leader, who had no formal role inside the jamahiriyah but made sure
that the Revolutionary Committee Movement answered only to him, has played on the
aspirations of his sons to succeed him, pitting one against the other to ensure that none of
them could amass sufficient power to threaten his position.
In such an atmosphere of eternal mistrust and suspicion, it is hardly surprising that the
ultimate bastion of the regime has been the "foreign mercenaries" that have terrified Libyans
with their indiscriminate violence during the country’s latest revolution.
Yet, they too form part of the leader’s conception of the state. In the 1980s, Libya opened its
borders to all who were Muslim, as part of its vision of Arab nationalism and Islamic
radicalism.

The regime also recruited an "Islamic Legion" to aid it in its foreign adventures, particularly in
Africa, as Chad, Uganda and Tanzania were to discover.
In 1997, Libya also renounced its self-image as an Arab state, prioritising its African destiny
instead, opening its borders to sub-Saharan Africa, despite the intense domestic tensions that
the inflow of migrants generated, which resulted in riots and deaths in September 2000.
Now, apart from using African migrants as a tool to coerce European states such as Italy with
the threat of uncontrolled migration, it has also recruited them into its elite forces around the
"Deterrent Battalion" (the 32nd Brigade) which are used solely for internal repression.
They have no loyalty to Libyans who hate them and they are the forces on which Colonel
Qaddafi relies to ensure that his regime ends in a bloodbath to punish Libyans for their
disloyalty to his political vision.
The future
Whatever the Colonel thinks – and it is what he thinks that determines the struggle inside
Libya today – there are objective factors that will determine the outcome.
Unrest in Western Libya has already led to towns in the Jefara Plain falling to the widening
anti-regime movement. Zuwara is said to have been taken over by them and major struggles
are taking place between armed forces loyal to the Qaddafi regime and the inchoate
movement opposed to it in Misurata and Zawiya, where helicopter gunships seem to have
been used.
Even if Tripoli is still under regime control, the towns surrounding it seem to be slipping away.
Eventually, the leader will control only the capital and nothing else. There is no doubt that the
struggle is becoming increasingly bloody, with estimates of losses being set at between 600
and 2,000 dead.
The outcome will be determined by the loyalty of the armed forces and the institutions of the
state towards the Libyan leader.
Yet this is increasingly in doubt; two ministers, from the justice and the interior, have resigned
and Libya’s diplomatic missions around the world are gradually falling way, including key
missions at the United Nations in New York and in Washington. Diplomats say the are
sickened by what they regard as genocide as Libya’s armed forces fire on unarmed
demonstrators.
Even the armed forces are becoming increasingly unreliable – a belated revenge, no doubt,
for the way in which they have been chronically mistrusted and misused. Few, in the armed
forces or within the population, have forgotten the abuse heaped upon them by the regime
after Libya was forced out of Chad with heavy losses in the late 1980s.
Who follows?
The problem is that it is extremely unclear what could emerge to replace the colonel’s
unlamented regime.
One consequence of its unrestrained repression has been to ensure that no movement or
individual has emerged as a natural alternative. Inside Libya, only the Muslim Brotherhood
and some extremist Islamist groups have any formal presence.
Outside Libya there are myriad opposition groups, it is true, but there is no evidence that they
have any real purchase inside the country.

There are also growing fears in European states along the northern shores of the
Mediterranean of a flood of migrants and asylum-seekers fleeing the violence. And then there
are the one million sub-Saharan African migrants marooned in Libya in the hope of crossing
into Europe.
George Joffe is a Research Fellow at Cambridge University, and Visiting Professor at Kings
College, London University, specialising in the Middle East and North Africa. He is the former
Director of Studies at the Royal Institute for International Affairs in London (Chatham House).